* Mario Kreft, chair of Care Forum Wales.
A major campaign has been launched to ensure
qualified staff who work in care homes and domiciliary care in Wales are paid a
minimum of £20,000 a year.
Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales,
said they had been condemned to low pay for many years because of the “morally
bankrupt” formulas used by local authorities and health boards to calculate the
fees for social care.
According to Mr Kreft, the "heroic" response of care
workers in saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic had highlighted their
true value and it was high time it was recognised by the authorities who
commissioned publicly funded social care.
It was, he said, a “national disgrace” that the
2020 Fair Pay campaign was necessary but he hoped it would shame the councils
and the health boards into taking action to finally ensure that qualified care
workers could be paid properly after a quarter of a century of a mismanaged
market which has seen social care being treated as a “Cinderella service”.
As a result, the frontline workforce had been "left
behind".
The Welsh Government had shown the way earlier this
year when they announced a one-off £500 bonus payment for social care staff.
It was very welcome recognition and now local
authorities and health boards should follow suit by updating their funding
formulas so that qualified care workers received at least £20,000 a year as a
bare minimum.
All those who worked in social care deserved at
least the Real Living Wage.
One of Mr Kreft’s fears was that the NHS will
effectively poach social care staff to cope with the extra demands caused by
the second surge of the virus which was already underway.
Pay rates in the NHS were historically higher than
those available in care homes and domiciliary care because their funding in
relative terms was a lot more generous.
He is calling for an assurance from the seven
health boards in Wales that they will not be recruiting additional staff from
care homes and domiciliary care by offering them more money to work for them
than they allowed care providers to pay.
Mr Kreft said: “Social care
staff have risen magnificently to the immense challenges posed by the Covid-19
pandemic and the public understand better than ever that these people do have
important skills and are vital to their communities across Wales.
“They are an army of heroes and should be viewed as
a value rather than a cost to society.
“It is high time that when local authorities and
health board commission publicly funded social care services that the formulas
they use finally recognise their true value and enable providers to pay
frontline staff a minimum of £20,000 a year from April 1 next year.
“Existing formulas that use the basic living wage
as their benchmark are unacceptable, particularly given what the sector has
achieved this year and the support the sector has from the public.
“We know from the first wave of the pandemic that
the NHS does not have enough staff to run the rainbow hospitals in Wales
so the only place that they can go and get people with those sorts of skills is
the care sector and the care sector is critically endangered.
“There’s evidence from when the Dragon’s Heart
Hospital Cardiff during the first wave that they were offering significantly
higher rates of pay than what providers -which were commissioned by local
authorities and local health boards - were able to pay.
“Currently, many of the formulas used to commission
publicly funded social care services are predicated on paying at or just above
the legal minimum wage to a significant number of people which flies in the
face of the traditional Welsh qualities of fairness and equality.
“As a result, we have a system that is
self-perpetuating that has created a morally bankrupt vicious circle.
“The evidence that commissioners effectively set
rates of pay is irrefutable.
“In normal times, between 60% and 70% of a care
home’s income goes straight out in wages while it’s 80% in domiciliary care –
but the percentage has been even higher during the pandemic.
“If we lose skilled social care staff to the NHS
then the result of that could be that homes could have to temporarily close
down and send their residents to the field hospitals which would be
counterproductive for everybody concerned as it would pile even more pressure
on the beleaguered health service.
“I am therefore calling for an urgent assurance
that the NHS will immediately refrain from recruiting anybody from social care
by paying them higher wages. It wouldn’t take long for care home closures to
fill hospital beds at the field hospitals
“After all their heroic work during the pandemic,
you surely cannot deny that people who work in care homes and those who provide
care in people’s own homes deserve a bare minimum of £20,800 a year for a full
time equivalent member of staff for a 40 hour seek on £10 an hour .
“Money in care workers’ pockets is spent in their
local communities which is a vital part of the foundation economy of Wales.
“The responsibility for making this happen clearly
rests with the 22 local authorities and the seven health boards in Wales.
“The tension between a means tested social care
service provided by local authorities and the NHS, free at the point of
delivery has been exacerbated by unelected health boards without a democratic
mandate from the community they serve.
“The social care workers in these very communities
are in fact a foundation block of the healthcare system in Wales.
“We have long endured a tapestry of social care
services across Wales which were not only underfunded but also promoted
inequality. That tapestry has been held together by social care workers and is
now threadbare.
“The time for action is now and we must shield
social care and save lives this winter and into the future.”
